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MONOGRAPH 



JAMES D. BUTLEK, LL.D 



MADISON, WIS., 1883 



PORTRAITS or COLUMBUS. 



MONOGRAPH 



JAMES D. BUTLER, LL.D 



MADISON, WIS., 1883. 



[From the Collections of the State Historical Society, 1883.] 

PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS. 



BY PROF. JAMES D. BUTLER, LL. D. 

Governor Fairchild : ^ 

In behalf of the Historical Society, I have the honor — and it 
is a very pleasant duty — to thank you for your generous gift. 
Nothing you could bring us from the ancient kingdom where you 
have so ably represented our country, could be more acceptable 
to us. It is a present exactly in keeping with our endeavors dur- 
ing a whole generation. One by one have we hung up in our 
Picture Grallery the likenesses of our State pioneers, as well as of 
others famous each after his own fashion in our annals. But the 
grand link thus far lacking in the chain of our pictorial history, 
you were among the first to observe to be missing, and you have 
made haste to supply that missing link. 

In this labor of love you have followed the footsteps of an 
illustrious predecessor. When Jefferson was the American min- 
ister in Paris, about 1784, he engaged an artist to take the best 
copy possible of what passed for the most authentic Columbian 
likeness in existence, — the Medici portrait in Florence ^ — and the 
original, as most critics think, of the present you bring us to-day. 
This painting was with Jefferson during his Presidency, and he 
writes about it as one of his chief jewels at Monticello in 1814 
In his drawing room there, it hung the second among four por- 
traits on the left as one entered. If Virginia had had any Histor- 
ical Society in his time,^ he must have delighted to enshrine his 

' Hon. Lucius Fairchild, while United States Minister at Madrid, admiring 
the fine Yanez portrait of Columbus, in the Spanish National Library, closely 
resembling the famous likeness in the Florentine Gallery, he at once 
caused a copy to be made by the eminent artist, M. Hernandez, of that city, 
for the special purpose of adding it to the art collection of our Historical 
Society. It was a happy thought, promptly and gracefully carried into exe- 
cution. L. C. D. 

2 Jefferson's Works, Vol. VI, pp. 343, 375. Domestic Life, Sarah N. Randolph. 

•The Virginia Historical Society was not founded until five years after 
Jefferson's death, or in 1831. 



4 "Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

pictorial memorial within its walls, deeming it as be wrote, " a 
matter even of public concern that our country should not be 
without it." 

What has become of this Jeflfersonian relic, is a question we 
naturally ask. I have corresponded regarding it with Lossing, 
who has illustrated so many of our worthies, and with Parton, 
tlie latest biographer of Jefferson. Neither of them could give 
me any inkling of its fate. I next wrote to Miss Sarah N. Ean- 
dolph, a great grand-daughter of Jefferson, and the author of a 
volume on his Di^raestic Life. In her answer were these words: 

" The Columbus and other portraits having been reserved at 
the sale of Mr. Jefferson's effects, were sent to Boston, where it 
was supposed, there would be a better chance of selling them to 
advantage. They were intrusted to Mr. Coolidge, who married 
my aunt. They are both now dead, and I wrote to their daughter, 
telling her of your desire to know about the Columbus. She 
writes that she knows nothing of it, and would not know that 
such a picture had been at Monticello, but for the fact that it is 
mentioned in my book." " I have often," Miss Randolph contin- 
ues, wished to trace this picture up ; but suppose there is now no 
hope of doing so. My uncle has been dead only three years, and 
a single word from him would have told all." 

Thus my research seemed in vain. Notwithstanding it has 
been my fortune to discover the lost likeness ; if not America, 
at least its discoverer. The word Boston in Miss Randolph's let- 
ter put me on the track. Had I been in that city I would have 
gone at once to the building of the Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
ety assured that all historic gems must gravitate thither. But I 
was a thousand miles away, and so I scrutinized their publica- 
tions. In their Collections (3rd series, Vol. VII., p. 285), I came 
to a notice of a portrait of Columbus, presented by Israel Thorn- 
dike,^ and in their Proceedings (Vol. II., pp. 23, 25), I observed 

' To the same merchant prince of Boston, Harvard owes the gift of a treas- 
ure, which the German Professor, Ebeling, had been fifty years in collecting, 
and which, at his death, was the finest in existence, namely, nearly four 
thousand volumes of books relative to America, and almost ten thousand 
maps, charts and views. 



Portraits of Columbus. 5 

that tbe donor, in his letter of presentation (Nov. 26, 1835), de- 
scribed the Columbian portrait as " a copy from an original in the 
Gallery of Medicis (sic), at Florence, for Thomas Jefferson." 

It was a pleasure to ascertain that Jefferson's favorite hangs 
just where he would have it — in the hall of that Society which 
has done most to elucidate the annals of the country over which 
Jefferson presided, and of the Continent which Columbus revealed. 

In 1814, Mr. Delaplaine, father of our townsman, was publish- 
ing in Philadelpia his "Repository of Distinguished Americans." 
He made strenuous efforts to obtain for his frontispiece a drawing 
from the Jeffersonian portrait. Failing in this endeavor, he was 
forced to have recourse to a painting by Macella, copied from some 
fancy portrait,^ cased in plate armor, and lettuce ruffs, with fea- 
tures as divergent as the costume from the genuine type. 

Investigations of every sort regarding Columbus are now 
seasoned by special seasonableness, inasmuch as we have already 
entered the last decade before the fourth centennial anniversary 
of the great discovery, — an era that will be celebrated from pole 
to pole. 

In tracing the Jeffersonian portrait of Columbus, I first be- 
came aware that no monograph on the general subject of Colum- 
bian portraits was discoverable in English, and scarcely in any 
language. The only article I found was- a gossipy letter in a 
New York daily paper from Irving in his old age, which showed 
that he had never given the subject more than superficial atten- 
tion. In Poole's corpulent Index to seven thousand volumes of 
periodicals, you can detect no single paper concerning portraits of 
Columbus. My treatment of the theme then is tilling a virgin 
field. 

My investigation has brought me into correspondence with all 
the world. Among those to whom I owe special thanks are Gen- 
eral B. Alvord, U. S. A., of Washington ; Professor Norton, of 
Harvard University; Mary Cowden Clarke; the United States 
ministers or consuls in Mexico, Lisbon and Genoa; Chief Justice 
Daly, of New York; H. A. Homes, W. C. Todd, Bela Hubbard, 

' Larousse — " Purely fanciful." Jefferson's Work's, Vol. VI, pp. 343, 375. 



6 Wisconsin State Histobical Society. 

E. M. Barton, Miss Sarah K Randolph, A. H. Hoyt, Mellen 
Chamberlain, William H. Wyman, George H. Moore, John 
Ward Dean, John R. Bartlett, Ralph U. James, and the Diike of 
Veragua himself. 

. The oldest Columbian portrait of which I discover any trace 
in the United States, now hangs in the New York Senate Cham- 
ber at Albany. It was presented to the State in 1784, by Mrs. 
Maria Farmer, a grand-daughter of Jacob Leisler, Governor of 
New York, in 1689. According to her statement the painting 
had been in her family for a hundred and Gfty years. It may 
then have been brought from Europe more than two centuries 
ago. In one corner it bears the inscription, " anno [1592] or 
1492, Act. 23." This legend may indicate the year in which the 
copy was taken, and the age of the copyist.^ This likeness is of 
a younger man than we can believe Columbus to have been when 
his first portrait was painted, and it is not now generally deemed 
authentic. 

Your gift is small to the eye, but it is great to the mind. I for 
one could not appreciate its value till after considerable research.^ 

' Catalogue N. Y. State Library, p. 45. Magazine of Amer. History vol. 
V, p. 446. 

' During my investigation, engravings of Columbian portraits have come 
to my knowledge in great numbers. The oldest of all painted likenesses, 
the Florentine UflSzi, dating from 1568, or probably from an earlier year. A 
photograph of this has been ordered from Florence. Among those owned 
by the State Historical Society are the following: 

1. The Giovian wood cut, dating from 1575 or '78. 

2. The Yanez portrait from Madrid, unscoured. 

3. The same, scoured. 

4. The De Bry likeness, Frankfort, 1595. 

5. The Capriolo likeness, Rome, 1598. 

6. The Naples likeness, by Parmigiano. 

7. The Munoz likeness. 

8. The bust in Genoa. 

9. The statue in Genoa. 

10. The Bryant and Gay likeness from an old map. 

11. The Harper Magazine likeness. 

12. The Bibliotbeque National, p. 150, Goodrich. 

13. The Albany likeness. 

14. The Herrera, p. 219, Goodrich. 

15. The Venetian Jlosaic. 

16. A German likeness, p. 882, Goodrich. 

17. The Bernardo likeness. 

18. Columbus as St. Christopher, p. 153, Goodrich. 

19. The Jeflersonian Columbus in Boston, heliotype. 

20. The Crispin de Pas., photograph. 



Portraits of Columbus. 7 

The so-called likenesses of Columbus are mostly fancy sketches. 
As men have made to themselves gods, each after his own 
national image, so have they portrayed their heroes, and not least 
our heroic discoverer. The great navigator as represented at 
Madrid, in the palace of the Duke of Berwick- Alba, is seated on 
a throne, and arrayed in high colored silks and embroidery, while 
his features are no more true to nature than his dress. This 
painting is said to be a copy from a likeness in Havana, which 
has often been sought for but always in vain.^ It is the original 
of the largest known Columbian engraving which bears this in- 
scription : " The original was painted in America by Van Loo." 
El cuadro original fue pintado en America por Van Loo. When 
was Van Loo in America? The gods, one would think, must an- 
nihilate both time and space to make the owner of such a sham 
happy. Yet a copy of this engraving was highly prized by the 
late Mr. Lenox, and now adorns his library in Central Park. 
He supposed that the Duke of Alba portrait had been painted in 
the lifetime of Columbus.^ 

In the Cuban consistorial hall at Havana, Columbus appears 
dressed as a familar of the inquisition.^ In one likeness he resem- 
bles an effeminate Narcissus ; in many others the costume and 
arrangement of hair are in a style unknown to his century, while 
his lineaments are treated with no less license than his vestments. 
Seeing Columbus thus transformed — or rather deformed — we 
are reminded of personal caricatures in Punch, of Mark Twain, 
asking "Is he dead?" or of a heathen idol baptized with the 
name of a saint, so that what was carved for Jupiter becomes Jew 
Peter. 

More than one canvas passing for a Columbian portrait is a 
palimpsest ; that is, it shows traces of a former name having been 
erased in order that the word Columbus might be inscribed. Pro- 
ductions betraying such an alias remind us of a dinner scene in 
Mark Twain's " Tramp Abroad." An American complained that 

' Carderera, p. 8. 

' Cat. of Tickaor'8 Spanish Books in Boston Public Library, p. 95. Car- 
derera, p. 23. 

^Magazine of Amer, History, Vol. 1, p. 510. 



8 Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

having ordered champagDe, he had been served with vin ordinaire. 
The steward took the bottle — saw that it bore the words vin 
ordinaire, and acknowledged the mistake. He then called a 
waiter to bring a champagne label, and pasted it on in place of 
the words objected to, saying, " You now have, sir, what you 
ordered, and as good champagne as we ever furnish." 

About thirty years ago, Judge Ira Barton, a member of the 
American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester, Massachusetts, see- 
ing in the picture gallery at Naples a portrait by Parmigiano 
which was called Columbus, obtained a copy of it, painted by an 
Italian artist named Scardino, and gave it to the Society for hang- 
ing in its hall. But the painter was only three years old at the 
death of Columbus ; and so even in the view of its donor this 
painting was only an ideal likeness. In truth, it is not so much 
as that. According to Professor C. E. Norton, of Cambridge, " it 
is no longer held by any competent critic to be an authentic like- 
ness." The Spanish painter and investigator, Carderera, goes fur- 
ther, and in disproof of its pretensions discourses as follows : 

" We now come to notice the famous portrait which hangs in 
the Eoyal Museo Borhonico at Naples, attributed to the elegant 
pencil of Parmigiano. As this celebrated painting has of late 
misled very respectable persons, and has been reproduced in 
engravings at Naples, as well as in France and England,^ it seems 
necessary to subject it to a careful analysis. Bechi, who has de- 
scribed this beautiful work, confesses that the eminent artist had 
to paint the portrait from imagination. M. Jomard, of the French 
National Library, is of the same opinion, and yet advised the 
Genoese nobles commissioned to raise a statue of the great man 
that their artists should inspire themselves at this notable print- 
ing. We must, in many points, differ from the opinions of the 
two distinguished persons we have just mentioned. Having 
carefully examined the portrait in Naples, we have come to doubt 
whether the Parmesan artist intended it to be a likeness of Colum- 

' This Neapolitan likeness was reproduced as the frontispiece in one of the 
volumes of Prescott's ** Ferdinand and Isabella.'" It was engraved in 1883 
by George E. Ferine, expressly for the American EdecticMagazine. It was an 
odd blunder to make a misnomer the subject of sq fine a work of art. 



Portraits of Columbus. 9 

bus at all. There is scarcely any point of resemblance between 
tbe authentic [word ?] portraits of the Admiral which so clearly 
reveal the Jrank manner, and a certain courtier-like delicacy and 
reserve which appear in the Neapolitan canvas. 

" Still more noticeable is the contrast between the garb and 
austere aspect of our hero, and the exquisite and effeminate deco- 
rations of a personage whose physiognomy, very long and lean, 
differs most widely from the oval and strongly marked face of the 
Admiral, — an aspect noble, clear, and lit up by genius. Neither 
the hair which adorns the temples of the Neapolitan figure with 
symmetrical and elegant locks, nor the whiskers and long beard, 
nor the curls smoothly arranged, were seen, save in rarest excep- 
tions, in the age of Ferdinand and Isabella, either in Spain, or in 
Italy, or in other civilized regions of Europe ; much less up to the 
first years of Charles V., could any one meet with a slashed Grer- 
man red cap with plume and gold studs. The same may be said 
concerning other parts of the attire, — as the silk sleeves hooped 
by fillets, lace about the hands, gloves, a finger ring, and other 
refinements which characterize a finished gallant of the sixteenth 
century. 

It may be said that the medal which adorns the cap in the Nea- 
politan picture is stamped with a ship steering out beyond the 
pillars of Hercules. Admit that it does, may it not be no more 
than one of these devices then so much in vogue, and concerning 
which Giovio, Euscelli, Cappacio, and other ingenious Italians 
wrote so many volumes? The vice-king of Catalonia bore as a 
device the sea-compass; Isabel of Corregio, had for hers two 
anchors in the sea. Stephen Colonna had two columns painted in 
the deep sea with a band connecting them, and inscribed His 
suJfuUa! We could cite a hundred examples of picture restorers 
destroying accessories and legends, as well as cleansing and 
retouching audaciously, and for the worse. Who can satisfy us 
that the Neapolitan portrait has not suffered a similar degra- 
dation ?" 

On the whole, Carderera decides that Parmigiano's painting had 
no reference to Columbus ; but was more probably a likeness of 
one Giberto de Sassuolo. It may be added, that when Parmigiano 



10 Wisconsin State Histoeical Society. 

had painted a Venus, and then received a commission for a Virgin 
Marj, he passed off his queen of beauty, with some trifling 
■changes for the queen of saints. Nor were Venus and the Virgin 
more unlike each other than was a finical courtier to any fair set- 
ting forth of Columbus. 

Equally untrustworthy has one portrait owned by the Duke of 
Veragua, a descendant of the great Admiral, now been proved. 
Eegarding this work, an eminent Spanish artist says : " Its date 
cannot be earlier than the end of the seventeenth century ; it has 
whiskers and ruffles which were unknown for more than one gen- 
eration after Columbus. Nothing more than a copy of this modern 
fancy is to be seen in the archives of the Indies at Seville, or in 
the grand engraving published by Munoz." A copy of the Ve- 
ragua portrait was presented in 1818 to the Pennsylvania Academy 
of Arts, by E. W. Meade. In the light of subsequent criticism, 
it turns out a less valuable benefaction than was supposed alike 
by the donor and by the receivers. 

No less unsatisfactory is the bust in possession of the New 
York Historical Society. It is a fac simile of an ideal in the Pro- 
tomoteca of the Capitoline Museum at Eome. There was one 
picture brought out at Frankfort, in 1595, with two warts on the 
left cheek and a full bottomed wig, by Theodore Bry, a German 
engraver, who called it Columbus, and claimed that its original 
had been executed by order of the Spanish monarchs, when 
Columbus was about starting on his first voyage. At that early 
period, however, those sovereigns were so far from caring for his 
portrait, that they shipped him off beyond the sea to get rid of 
his presence, which was as vexatious to them as the importunate 
widow to the unjust judge. Besides, in this painting the physi- 
ognomy is totally unlike the delineations by the discoverer's 
intimates. The nose was flat and snub — not aquiline. This 
mercantile speculation, for it was nothing else, is a Dutch face, and 
looks as if a Dutchman made it. It is inscribed Indiarum primus 
inventor. Its pretensions have been exploded by Navarrete.^ 

In looking at this Dutch imposture, I am reminded of the 
tourist, who, when the skull of St. Peter was exhibited in Eome, 

» Harrisse, Notes, p. 163. Memorias, Vol. VIII, p. 18, Boletin I, 3, 245. 



POBTEAITS OF COLUMBUS. 11 

cried out — " I saw another skull of Peter on my way hither." 
" No doubt you did," said the relic shower, but what you saw was 
the cranium of Peter, the fisher boy ; what I hold up is the head 
of Peter the full grown apostle ! " In any view of the matter, 
what was the Dutch Columbus who had not yet embarked, to him 
who had crossed and re-crossed the mighty deep, bearing Christ 
to the Indies, and the Indies to Christendom. But critics are now 
agreed that there is no likelihood that any portrait whatever of 
the great discoverer was painted before his great discovery. 

In 1821, Peschiera, commissioned by the city of Genoa to carve 
a bust which was to stand on a shrine inclosing various autograph 
papers of Columbus, according to Irving, discarded all portraits 
known to him, and drew his ideal from ancient descriptions of the 
great Admiral. His effort gave no permanent satisfaction. His 
handiwork was ere long supplanted by a second bust, and that in 
a few years by a third. This three-headed Columbus deserves 
the name of Cerberus — at least a consecutive, if not a simultane- 
ous, Cerberus. 

Disgusted with counterfeit presentments of Columbus, which 
were counterfeits indeed, the authorities of Genoa wishing to 
erect a worthy monument of its greatest son,^ sought all through 
the world for his most authentic likeness in order to show forth at 
the entry of its gates, and in its chief place of concourse, the man 
himself, and not a mockery of him. The results of this research 
are worth our noting, and the more as they have not yet appeared 
in English. After long deliberation the Madrid Historical Society 
advised the Genoese to model their statue not according to any 
likeness in Spain, as national pride might have dictated, but by 
the Florentine painting from which Jefferson's copy was made, as 
well as according to an ancient wood cut, and an engraving, which 
had been early derived from the same source with that painting.^ 

What was that source? It was the Museum of Paolo Giovio, 
on the site of Pliny's villa, by the lake of Como. About the 

^Carderera, Preface, Boletin, Vol. 1, p. 244. 

'^Bolctin 1,253. No vacilamos en presentar el retrato de Florencia, y el 
grabado de Capriolo, como los tipos que puedea suministrar raas datos para 
reproducir la imagen del inslgae Genoves. Carderera p. 11. 



12 Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

middle of the sixteenth century, Cristofano dell'Altissimo was 
despatched to this museum by the Duke of Tuscany to copy 
portraits. Vasari^ relates that before 1568 he had completed more 
than two hundred and eighty ~ of them, and that they were then ar- 
ranged in the Florentine Museum. They hang there to this day. 
Columbus is No. 397. But whether the face of Columbus was 
among those painted by Cristofano cannot be proved from Bohn's 
edition of Vasari, nor by any edition in any language in the Bos- 
ton Atheneum or Public Library, for I have had them both 
searched. But all the names are chronicled in the Guinti edi- 
tion, and perhaps in that alone. 

Despairing for a while of discovering the Giunti edition of 
Yasari which, half a century ago, was set down in Brunet's Bibli- 
ography as " rare and much sought for ; " and so of securing the 
testimony of the only competent and credible witness known to 
me regarding the origin of the Florentine Columbus, I was all 
the more delighted to gain the information I desired from Profes- 
sor Norton, of Harvard University, who wrote me as follows : 

" I am glad to say that I happen to have the Giunti edition of 
Vasari. The list of portraits in the Museo of the Duke Cosimo 
occupies three pages and part of a fourth. It begins with Con- 
dottieri, who are followed by kings and emperors, these by em- 
perors of the Turks, and other heroes ; these by " heroic men," of 
whom the first eight are : 

1. Alberto Duro. 

2. Leonardo da 7inci. 
8. Titiano. 

4. Michael Angelo Buonarroti. 

5. Amerigo Yespucci, 

6. Colomho Genovese? 

7. Ferdinand© Magellane. 

8. Ferdinando Cortese. 

1 Lives of Painters, vol. V., p. 478. 

- In some editions the number is set down as two hundred and fifty. 

*The name Colombo Genovese has been at last discovered by Judge Daly in 
one other edition of Vasari, namely, the Bologna of 1647. He describes it as 
hid away in a corner, that is " in the appendix to vol. III., signature F. f. f., 
third sheet back." — Ms. letter of Judge Daly. 



Portraits op Columbus. 13 

The Florentine Columbus then, is not an original, though Mr. 
lefferson, as was not surprising in his day, had fallen into the 
nistaken idea that it was. He says : "The Columbus was taken 
or me from the original, which is in the gallery of Florence. I 
ay from an original, because it is well known that in collections 
if any note, anJ that of Florence is the first in the world, no copy 
3 ever admitted, and an original existing in Genoa would readily 
»e obtained for a royal collection in Florence.' Vasari names 
his portrait, but does not say by whom it was made." The 
Horentine Columbus cannot have been painted later than 1568, 
7hen Vasari's notice of it was printed. It may be a score of 
'ears older than that date. It must be, if Columbus was among 
he first portraits copied by Cristofano. Though not an original, 
t is older than any other likeness can be proved, and probably 
Ider than any other one claims to be. Its painter was sent to 
opy in the Giovian Museum, because there was the best por- 
rait gallery in existence. Giovio had long lavished labor and 
ucre alike in forming it.~ 

Before 1546, the Giovian Museum had become so famous that 
i drew things of like nature to itself. In that year, Giulio Ro- 
lano bequeathed to it a collection of portraits which Raphael 
ad had made from stanzas in the Vatican.^ Among these were 
Iharles YII, King of France; Antonio Colonna, Prince of Sa- 
3rno; Niccolo Fortebraccio ; Francesco Carmignuola; Cardinal 
Jessarion ; Francesco Spinola, and Battista da Canneto. As the 
lace where works of art would be most carefully preserved, best 
hown, and most appreciated, that repository might well be con- 
idered the niche which such treasures were ordained to fill. 
Accordingly it is not incredible, that if any art collector left no 
jgacy to the Giovian reservoir, his neglect was judged to be such 
proof of insanity as to warrant breaking his will. 

Ticozzi has published eight volumes, and Bottari various no- 
ices, evincing Giovio's pains to secure authentic portraits. His 
itters to Duke Cosmo, to Doni, to Aretino, Titian and others, 

'Jefferson's Works, vol. VI., p. 375. 

- Carderera, p. 11. 

« Vasari, Vol. II, p. 17. 



14: Wisconsin State Histobical Socibty. 

show solicitude lest some likenesses were not faithful or worthy 
of faith. ^ Eegarding the authenticity and accuracy of his Colum- 
bus, he seems to have had no misgivings. Concerning that hero, 
his first words are A unc honestissimafronieTiominem^^ — this man 
with honor so legible on his face. Giovio's residence was not far 
from his contemporary Giustiniani, whose biographical notice of 
Columbus antedates all others which have thus far come to light, 
and who may have guided Giovio to a picture of the discoverer. 
At the death of Columbus, Giovio was twenty-three years old. 
He was one of the foremost to recognize the grandeur of the 
Columbian revelation, and he wrote -."^ "It seems that Columbus 
is worthy to be honored by the Genoese with a most splendid 
statue " — !Sic ut Golumhus videri possit qui a Ligurihus luculentis- 
sima staiua decoreiur. 

While holding this view, and so careful regarding the accuracy 
of other likenesses, was he negligent regarding Columbus? Hia 
museum was situated in a Spanish province ; his agents were 
abroad in Spain, perhaps so early, that if no portrait existed, they 
could have had one executed. Besides how unlikely, when other 
honors were showered upon Columbus, and Giovio counted him 
worthy of the best possible statue, that no one was found to 
sketch his features, above all since he survived till painters from 
his native Italy were common in Spain. Chief Justice Daly has 
furnished me the names of no less than sixteen artists in that 
peninsula contemporary with Columbus, and any one of whom 
might have painted him. Those names are as follows : Juan 
Sanchez de Castro, founder of the Seville school, who survived 
Columbus ten years; Pedro Sanchez, Juan Nunez, GonzaloDiaz, 
Nicholas Francisco Pisan, George Ingles, Frutos Flores, Juan 
Flamenco, Francisco de Amberes, Juan de Flandres, Juao de 
Borgona, Antonio del Rincon, Peres de Velloldo, Garcia del 
Barcia, Juan Rodriguez, and perhaps Pedro del Berragueto. 

One of the portraits painted from life secured by Giovio, in the 
judgment of Crowe and Cavalcaselle,^ was that of Mohammed XL, 

' Carderera, p. 17. 

* In Christopheri Columbi elogio. 

' History of Painting in North Italy, Vol. I, p. 125. 



PoBTEAiTS OP Columbus. 15 

by Gentile Bellini. Who will believe that Giovio was more 
anxious to obtain a truthful presentment of a Turk than of a 
countryman, of the conqueror of an old city than of the discov- 
erer of the New World ? whom he himself styled " Siupendi 
alterius et nulli ante saeculo cognita terrarum orhis repertory incom- 
parabilis Ligurihus honos^ factus mortalium celeherrimus^'' etc. 

The wood cut, which has been already alluded to, was published 
at Basel, in 1578, to illustrate a eulogy on Columbus that had 
been written by Giovio. According to its editor, Perna, that 
wood cut was derived from a portrait in the Giovian Museum, 
which had been painted from life. His words are these : "T have 
at much "expense employed an eminent artist to engrave the 
Giovian portraits painted from life " — and, so far as appears, na 
others than those painted from life. His language as quoted by 
Carderera is: Ho mandado dihnjar eon miicho dispendio a un sobre- 
saliente artista los retratos pintados al vivo (ad vivian), que decora- 
ban el Museo de Giovio.^ An ancient engraving in the great 
library of Paris is inscribed : " From a portrait painted from 
nature {peint sur natwe),^ in the Museum of Giovio, and no other 
specimen in the vast collection makes that claim. The wood cuts 
of some other notables in Giovio's book being known to be cor- 
rect, it is a natural inference that that which represents Columbus 
is likewise worthy of credit. 

It is also asserted by Spanish critics, that a family likeness to 
the Giovian type as shown in the Florentine copy, and in the 
wood cut, is clear in most old and famous likenesses, as in the 
Belvedere at Vienna, the Borghese at Rome, the Cancellieri from 
Cuccaro, the Altamira, the Malpica, the Naval Museum,^ the Villa 
Franca, and the Yanez in Spain,^ From the last of these, bought 
from Yanez of Granada, in 1763, by the Government, and now 
hanging in the National Library, your present was painted. 

' Carderera, p. 15. The Basel edition in tlie Library of Congress bears a 
date three years earlier than that given by Carderera, namely, 1575. 

^ Lareusse. 

' Carderera, p. 11, note. 

* Carderera, pp. 18 and 24. The projecting lower lip and curved nose of 
the present Duke of Veragua, a lineal descendant of Columbus, resembles 
the Giovian prototypes. 



16 Wisconsin Statb Historical Society. 

The engraving where Columbus holds an octant in his hand, 
was first published at Cologne, in 1598, by Crispin de Pas 
[Pasaeus]. When critically examined, it also turns out to be 
nothing but a free imitation of the Giovian wood cut, which came 
out in Basel twenty years before.^ 

The portraitures I have last passed in review are the more re- 
liable, because they show the person of Columbus as we have it 
described by his own son, as well as by his contemporary, Oviedo ; 
that is, face large and ruddy, cheek bones rather high, nose aqui- 
line, eyes light, hair blonde in youth, but at thirty years old 
already white.^ It would seem, however, from all his pictures, 
that he must have dyed his hair, — or artists of old, as now, may 
have loved to show a man still at his best and fullest. 

In the list of Giovian portraits copied by Cristofano, Colum- 
bus stands between Americus ^nd Magellan. He who disputes 
the authenticity of Columbus, must push his skepticism 
further, unless the features of Americus and Magellan are con- 
firmed by other evidence. If they are, they heighten the cer- 
tainty that the Columbian likeness is likewise truthful. The 
Swiss wood cut of 1578, antedates all others ; yet it is by no 
means in good preservation. Accordingly, the Poman drawing 
by Capriolo, published in 1596, with another from Cucarro, and 
the painting in Florence, — the original of yours, as many critics 
say, — were recommended by Spain to the Genoese as the best 
models in form and features of the countryman whom they most 
delighted to honor. 

Thanks to these archetypes, some what idealized it may be, his 
native city, in 1862, completed a monument to Columbus, de- 
signed by Canzio,^ which puts to shame our ridiculous figure by 
the Neapolitan Persico, perched on the capitol steps at Washing- 
ton, in 18-11:, where he who gave us our Continent is clad in a sort 
of mail not invented at his era, and standing with the globe poised 

' Carderera, p. 18. 

' Carderera, p. 7. La cara larga, las megillas ua poco altas, la nariz agul- 
lena, los ojos blaacos [garzos Herrera] y il color encendido, etc. 

"A picture of this grand Genoese tribute to Columbus maybe found in 
fleury Harrisse's Notes on Columbus, p. 183. 



POETEAITS OF COLUMBUS. 17 

in his hand like a nine-pin ball, seems ready to bowl it through 
an alley. 

The grand Genoese statue of Columbus represents him lean- 
ing on an anchor, and America sitting at his feet. Not far oft 
there is an inlaid tablet inscribed : 

Bissi, voUi, credi! Ecco un secondo 
Sorger nuovo dalVoiide ignote mondo. 
" His wish, his faith, his word; from unknown surges. 
Behold a second world, new found emerges! " 

The crowning statue on the Genoese monument was first or- 
dered from the sculptor Bartolotti, or Bartolini, who shortly after 
died. It was then given to Freccia, wbo had but just finished a 
rough model when he became a maniac and died. From his 
model, however, it was finished by Franzone and Svanascini, of 
Carrara. A good authority also assured me, that " for the features 
they relied upon a drawing made from a portrait hanging in the 
palace of the Duke of Yeragua at Madrid, a descendant of Colum- 
bus. The Duke had the drawing made, and sent it to Genoa for 
that purpose." 

This statement was made in a private letter from John F. Ha- 
zelton, United States consul at Genoa. I wish it were correct, for 
the principal portraits in the possession of the Duke of Veragua 
are first, one painted from the CucarroMikeness, which is a de- 
scendant from the Giovian portrait through the Capriolo engrav- 
ing ; and secondly,^ a copy from the likeness in the National Li- 
brary (Biblioteca Nacional), the identical Yanez from which our 
copy was obtained. The Consul was, however, rnisinformed. A 
letter from the Duke of Yeragua himself assures me, that the 
Genoese, when building their Columbian monument, did not con- 
sult loith him at all. The Duke's words are : Los artislos de Gen- 
ova no me comultaron quando se consirvjo el monumento a quelle se 
refiere. 

Though so many Columbian portraits point to Giovio's Muse- 
um as their mother, and bear a family likenes?, as in scale, atti- 
tude and materia], and the eyes in all look to the right, they dif- 

* Car^erera, p. 23. 

• Ms. letter from Duke of Vera^u^, January 35. 1883. 

2 



18 Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

fer in accessories, especially in costume and hair, as well as in ex- 
pression, ranging from sad to cheerful. The wood-cut and the 
Florentine copy are so divergent in dress, though the features are 
alike, that recent critics hold that Giovio had two Columbian like- 
nesses. The costume in the wood-cut corresponds to what the 
curate of Palacios,^ Andrea Bernaldez, saw Columbus wearing 
in June, 1496, namely, a dress in color and fashion like a Fran- 
ciscan friar's, but shorter, and for devotion, girt with the rope of a 
cordelier. 

The costume, in your gift, strikes men now exactly as the 
actual garb of Columbus struck the Spanish curate. While your 
Columbus was being framed here in Madison, every person who 
came into the shop said to the workman, " What Catholic priest 
have you here ? " In the era of Columbus it was a popular 
faith that no one was sure of salvation unless he died in a relig- 
ious dress. The religiosity of Columbus was as great as that of 

any man — 

" Who to be sure of Paradise 

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, 

Or in Franciscan thought to pass disguised. ' 

He was, in fact, buried at Valladolid in the monastery of St. 
Francis, and that in the habit of a Franciscan friar.~ But as a 
sailor's garments were then like a Franciscan's, some hold that 
Columbus chose to be so painted with allusion to what he had 
himself achieved as a sailor. What costume so befitting the great 
admiral as that in which, as is most probable, he really stood on 
his forecastle during the night, when he united forever the two 
hemispheres hitherto always disjoined? 

The genuineness of the Giovian portrait is argued from its 
dress being similar to the Franciscan friar's frock. A portrait in 
such a costume, it is maintained, would never have been admit- 
ted among those of Americus, Magellan and Cortez, with other 
military heroes, unless known to be either original or copied from 

' Vino el Almirante en Castilla en el mes de junio de 1496, vestido de unas 
ropas de color de habito de San Francisco de Observancia, en la hachura 
poco menos que habito, y con cordon de San Francisco por devocion. Car- 
derera, p. 19. 

^ Carderera, p. 19. 



POETEAITS OF COLUMBUS. 19 

one indubi^ably drawn from life. The dress also points to a 
Spanish origin, because Italian artists already insisted on tricking 
out their personages — even contemporaries — in the robes of 
Ancient Romans, as Malone improved the bust on Shakspeare's 
tomb by whitewashing it all over. 

One point in the Columbian investigation, namely — what has 
become of the one or more most ancient portraits which adorned 
the Museum of Giovio, has been strangely neglected. One in- 
vestigator, however, Carderera, states that the collection was di- 
vided between the families of two Giovian counts, the descend- 
ants of whom are still residing in the city of Como. Something 
of it remained in 1780, when a letter from Giambattista Giovio 
to Tiraboschi described its relics, which, accordiog to Crowe and 
Cavalcaselle,^ continued undispersed to the very close of the 
eighteenth century. It is possible, then, that research about Como 
may be rewarded by the discovery of a Columbian likeness which 
shall become as famous in its line as the Vatican Codex is among 
Biblical manuscripts, — ^ yes, as pre eminent as that Codex would 
stand if the Alexandrian and Sinaitic codices had never existed. 

In 1763, a portrait of Columbus, with those of Cortez, Lope 
and Quevedo, was purchased from N. Yanez,^ who had brought 
it from Granada, by the Spanish Government. No trace of any 
such picture having been at an earlier period in the Royal Pic- 
ture Gallery has been detected. So long was the revealer of the 
"Western Hemisphere unappreciated in Castile and Leon. This 
Yanez likeness was hung in the National Library [Biblioteca Na- 
cional] and soon confessed by art critics to resemble closely in 
features that in the Florentine Uffizi — the oldest of known date, 
and that from which Jefferson's copy had been taken. It was 
highly praised by Navarrete,^ in his grand work, which is a nobler 
monument to Columbus than the labor of an age in piled stones. 

But Spanish artists were long ago satisfied, that the Yanez por- 
trait had been tampered with by some audacious restorer, and 
they at length obtained permission to test it with chemicals.* 

* History of Painting in North Italy, Vol. I, p. J 26. London, 1871. 
«Boletinl. No. 3, p. 367. 

* Same, p. 2r)3. 

« Boletin, vol. 1, No. 4, p. 327. 



30 Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

From side to side of the upper margin of the picture there raa 
the legend Christof, Columbus nori (sic) orbis inventor. 
These words were first subjected to the artist's test, and as thej 
vanished, quite another iosoription came out beneath thera, 
namely, the words Colomb. Lygur. novi orbis repior (sic). 
The variations not only proved that the likeness [had been re- 
painted, but that the second painter was inferior to the first, since 
repertor means to find by seeking, which inventor does not. The 
testers had no hesitation about proceeding further. The flowing 
robe with a heavy fur collar, as they said, " more befitting a Mus- 
covite than a mariner," vanished, while a simple garb, only a 
closely fitting tunic, and a mantle folded across the breast, rose to 
view. The eyes, nose, lower lip, facial oval, all assumed a new 
expression. The air of monastic sadness vanished, 

Senor Cubells and his assistants, who had begun their work 
nervously, finished it with glad surprise when they beheld the 
great discoverer throwing off the disguises that had been thrust 
upon him ; and, as it were, emancipated from the chains with 
which he was bound in his lifetime, and which were buried in 
his coffin. 

" As if he whom the asp 

In its marble grasp, 
Kept close and for ages strangled, 

Got loose from the hold 

Of each serpent fold, 
And exulted disentangled." 

A copy of this resuscitated Columbus was painted for you, and 
it forms the present which you bestow on the Historical Society 
of Wisconsin. 

Carderera, the great Spanish authority on Columbian portraits, 
regrets that while sojourning at the lake of Como, he had neg- 
lected to search in all highways and byways for the likeness that 
stood in the Museum of Giovio there, and which may be still 
lurking in some unsuspected corner. Friends of mine, now trav- 
eling abroad, have promised to spend time and money in making 
such research. 

But some Spanish investigators hold that labors in this direc- 
tion are needless. Signer Eios y Rios, in a recent Bulletin of 



Portraits of Columbus. 21 

the Madrid Academy,' maintains that the long-lost and much de- 
siderated Giovian portrait — the prototype of which all Colum- 
bian likenesses o£ any value are copies, has been found already. 
He holds that the Yanez portrait is nothing less than that Giovian 
jewel. He adduces many circumstances which serve to thicken 
other proofs of his position that do demonstrate thinly. Let us 
trust that this discovery of the great discoverer, which was as 
unlooked for as his own discovery of America, may prove as un- 
dubi table. 

In the Yellowstone National Park there are springs strongly 
impregnated with mineral matter. In one of these, if a man be 
immersed, as we dip a wick to make a tallow candle, he soon be- 
comes marble all over, through and through, — in a word, his own 
statue. It has been suggested that this wonderful spring should 
be utilized as an economical mode of immortalizing members of 
Congress, and procuring statues of undisputable accuracy for 
filling the temple of glory which has been opened in Washing- 
ton. Our superabundance of statesmen would thus be reduced, 
as many a celebrity might he led to speedy suicide, in order to be 
seen by posterity still at his best and fullest. 

However this may be, it cannot be sufliciently regretted that 
these wonder-working waters were not discovered by the discov- 
erer of America. In that case we might have had his own form 
and features eternized in a prototype — yes, an autotype beyond 
all question or cavil ; and, best of all, one that would never need 
to be whitewashed, at least not in the Washington sense of the 
term. 

Certain New York spiritualists, having secured the aid of 
Leonardo da Yinci, profess to have just supplied the world with 
the first authentic likeness of Confucius, It may be they will 
produce a Columbus with claims to accuracy which will rival 
what you bring us. But outside the gallery of spirit-art you 
need fear no rivalry. 

Our special thanks are due to you, sir, for this genuine like- 
ness, because so many counterfeits are abroad. We thank you 

» Boletin, I., 3, 253. 



22 Wisconsin State Historical Society. 

the more because it is still disputed, and perhaps doubtful, where 
the ashes of our great voyager now repose.^ It is claimed in 
Cuba, that those remains were transported to that island in 1796; 
but San Bomingans assert that they then, with pious fraud, deliv- 
ered up only sham relics, while retaining and secreting the verita- 
ble treasure. Be this as it may, and though every bone of Col- 
umbus shall turn to dust, till the world can boast no hair of him 
for memory, thanks to Giovio and his artists, his face, his form, his 
habit as he lived, triumph over death, and, enshrined in our His- 
toric Hal], thanks to you, they shall become as familiar as house- 
hold words to the people of this Commonwealth, where you have 
served as Chief Magistrate longer than any other man. In the 
new and noble Gallery now in preparation for our pictures, your 
benefaction shall close the grandest vista. EsTO perpetua ! 

Note. — Having begged information regarding the portrait of Columbus 
now in the Wew York capitol of Dr. H. A. Homes, the State librarian, that 
gentleman has brought to my knowledge several interesting particulars 
which have long lain, as it were, buried alive, in the Appendix to the Journal 
of the New York State Senate for the year 1850, pp. 788-793. The substance 
of the details there given is as follows: 

The Columbian portrait given, in 1784, by Maria Farmer to the Senate of 
New York, was accepted with grateful acknowledgments. At that time the 
city of New York wae the seat of the State government, and when, in 1797, 
the capital was removed to Albany, this picture was left behind. It seems to 
have been forgotten, and continued neglected or abstracted for many years. 
On the 26th of March, 1827, however, — thanks perhaps to the publication of 
Irving's biography — it was resolved by the Senate in Albany, that the Maria 
Farmer portrait of Columbus be removed from the city of New York, and 
put up in some suitable place in the Senate Chamber. Accordingly, the clerk 
of the Senate visited the city of New York, and, after considerable search, 
discovered in the garret of the city Hall, and identified, the Farmer portrait. 
Onward from that era this picture has hung either in the Senate Chamber or 
in its anteroom, and for some years over the fireplace, so that it became much 
■warped and injured. Hence, in 1850, it was " restored without changing the 
picture," by i\ ew York artists, and came to be regarded as one of the princi- 
pal ornaments of t^e Senate Chamber. 

Leisler, from whom the Columbian portrait had descended to Maria 
Farmer, had visited Europe, traveling over all its countries. While abroad, 
he probably procured this portrait, and that from some one of his kindred, 



'Los Restos de Colon, Madrid, 1879. 



Portraits of Columbus. 23 

if Mari Farmer's statement that it had been in her family as early as 1630, 
be correct. 

The date, 1592, inscribed on the portrait, is interpreted by the author of 
the Appendix as by me, to denote the year in which the picture was made, 
or copied; and the figures " Aet 23" to signify the age at which Columbus 
is represented, and that at which he first went to sea. In the background of 
this work a vessel is painted just sailing away from a small sea port. 



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